The present invention relates to methods of fabricating knife handles having decorative medallions, or the like, incorporated therein. More specifically, the invention relates to a process for making knife handles wherein an embedment, i.e., a relatively small piece initially separate from the handle, is visible through a transparent window raised from the plane of the knife handle against a background of different color than the knife handle.
It is sometimes desired to embellish a knife handle with purely decorative, i.e., non-functional, materials such as medallions and the like. Many knife handles at the present time are fabricated from plastic, and a number of techniques have been used to affix to, or otherwise incorporate in such handles ornamental materials which are initially distinct therefrom. For example, the decorative material may be mechanically attached to the handle, as by riveting, or placed within a cut-out area of the handle of approximately the same dimensions as the decorative material and affixed by heat flowng the plastic of the handle into close engagement with the other material. In addition to the limitations imposed on the nature of the decorative materials which may be incorporated in the handles by conventional techniques, there is often a substantial possibility that the decorative materials may become detached and lost. Thus, if decorative materials of any substantial value are to be incorporated in the knife handle, extreme care must be taken, usually involving expensive fabrication procedures, to minimize the possibility of detachment and loss of such materials.
Principal objects of the present invention are: to provide a method of fabricating plastic knife handles incorporating relatively expensive decorative materials in a manner which effectively precludes detachment of such materials from the handle; to provide a method of fabricating unusually attractive and durable ornamental plastic knife handles; and to provide a relatively simple and inexpensive process for fabricating ornamental knife handles which permanently incorporates therein initially separate materials.
In a more general sense, the object of the invention is to provide novel and unique methods of fabricating plastic knife handles which result in an attractive and unusual appearance.
Other objects will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.